The Extinct Fine Art Gallery

Me and many other very cool artists are participating in the Extinct Fine Art Gallery.  My paintings are going to carry over into the next "cycle" of exhibits on Friday, so you have a couple more days to see the first round and-

"Trish, this is your first blog post in two years, where the blazes have you been?" 

Ah yes.  Well, in a word, I've been busy.  I've been gradually shifting my online presence over to BlueSky, and that's proven to be more of a project than anticipated.  It's been hard, but I hope to get back into the art sharing and blog-posting groove.  Thank you for your patience.

The Six Fanart Challenge!

This was a lot of fun! First, the Twitter thread that started the whole thing:

I’m going to do it why not? #SixFanarts pic.twitter.com/6uPwnh1Siy

— Trish (@Babbletrish) April 8, 2020

I eventually did use the grid thing for the cleaned up color version:

 


And now, closeups of each color version!

Goblin Week 2020 _World of the Dark Crystal_ Brian Froud Master Studies

I have, if I do say so myself, an impressive collection of art books.  One of my favorite things I used to do was take one, pour over it, and draw from the illustrations in my own Sketchbooks.  My version of a Master Study, a very important learning method for any artist.  Any time I copy from a professional, the results always eventually end up more "me" anyway, but I still learn a lot from mimicking my favorites. 

I've never really thought to share such studies but A. I got a copy of the gorgeous concept art book The World of the Dark Crystal, which I never thought I'd get to own.  It's been reissued to celebrate "The Dark Crystal Age of Resistance" series which, goodness, is a genuine miracle.  Like, go watch it right now instead of reading this.  Anyway, the book is a fantastic collection of Brian Froud's concept art for the film and loads of world-building notes. 

And B. it is Goblin Week, my dudes!  And so, here are some Brian Froud-y gobliny "Dark Crystal" critters.  Drawing these little guys was so much fun and it makes me want to draw more studies like these (eyes the "Labyrinth" concept art book on the shelf).

You'll notice a note on the first page.  The Sketchbook I'm currently using is a Design Ideation LS PAINT.  And it is... fine.  It just doesn't take watercolor paint very well at all and the pages are thin enough to bleed through.  It was very nice for these pencil drawings though.  Note the pages are actually a creamy white paper; the rusty background on these images seemed to suit these little goblins better.











And now for some bonus sillyness:

On Moleskine Altenatives - Again...

Here at the old art blog, I like Sketchbooks a lot.  And I like testing Sketchbooks that are sometimes promoted as Moleskine alternatives.  Over the years, I've met and drawn in quite a few Moleskine alternatives and their quality can vary wildly.  So, in the spirit of the holiday season, here are the four most recent Sketchbooks, reviewed:

I talked a bit about the ZenArt Supplies B6 Sketchbook before and much of my opinion still stands.  I did learn that this Sketchbook takes art markers very well (with insane bleed-through) as seen above, which helps alleviate some of my criticisms.

This awesomeness is the Illo Sketchbook and it is so good.  The pages are nice and thick, and I think I could've easily got away with drawing on both sides, which is a very unique feature among the books I'm reviewing today.  It loves watercolor, pencils, inks, markers and more.  This is, after all, the Sketchbook that saw me through this year's MerMay.  The Illo is my favorite Sketchbook out of the lot and I've already got another one waiting in the wings.

Unfortunately, this means our next two Sketchbooks aren't so great.  This is the Leda Art Supplies Sketchbook.  If you bought a Sketchbook from Amazon recently, you've almost certainly seen it advertised.  I really didn't like the thinness of the paper and that floppy flexible cover is a killer.  And speaking of covers...

We've come to my current Sketchbook and... Look, I love all me Sketchbooks like they are my babies.  This is the Handbook Flexi-Sketch, and about halfway through it's rating a big old "Yikes."  Those pages are thin, thin, thin and they even roll over and give up at the sight of one of my trusty ballpoint pens.  But it's the cardstock-thick cover that seriously messes me up.  What a shame; I really liked the other Handbook I tried way way back in that first post.

So there you have it, four different Moleskine-alikes reviewed.  My verdict is get yourself an Illo, then maybe get another for your Secret Santa.  Have a great holiday season everyone!

The... Somewhat Delayed Inktober Wrap-up

So, an awful lot of things happened between the last blog post and this one and most of them were, indeed, awful.  I apologize in advance for the sad news but having hadn't posted in ages, I feel like an explanation is owed.

The month began with the sudden passing of my uncle, one of the funniest people I ever knew and the husband of my Godmother, who passed away last year.  This has, all told, been a hell of a couple of years for me.  Much of October was spent dealing with the fallout from this.  And just as my family and I were starting to get a handle on things, the month ended with The Nameless Storm.  At least ten trees were down in our neighborhood and we lost power for a week (we have a generator thank goodness, but still).  Fun times.

So October, the month, was a seemingly endless nightmare.

INK-tober, however, was fantastic.  I loved seeing everyone's art; it really did cheer me up during a terrible time.  I also drew a picture for every single day in October and honestly, I have no idea how I even did it.  To tell the truth, I'm a little soured on daily art challenges even though this was mostly stressful because of extenuating circumstances.  Anyway, here they all are.  Head to Flickr for the larger versions and more information: